


eyes that know me

by iodhadh



Series: out of the dust; into the dark [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, The Long Road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4274325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drust had expected the ambush: that was nothing new. He hadn't quite expected the professional assassin, but that wasn't exactly surprising either. What he isn't expecting, looking down at the unconscious face of someone who had tried to kill him only minutes before, is how beautiful the man is once the killer's blankness slips from his features.</p><p>There is a distinct possibility that his empathy is going to get him killed someday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eyes that know me

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, I accidentally some feelings.
> 
> Much of the dialogue is shamelessly cribbed from the actual in-game conversation; I own nothing, etc., etc. Title is from the Swell Season song _Falling Slowly_.

Drust didn’t think much of it at first. They had been on the road—and had a price on their heads—for long enough that he was getting accustomed to fending off bandit gangs and improvised barricades every time he tried to go somewhere. An ambush was no longer an event. And so when the panicked woman had come running up to his party babbling about an attack on her wagon and then run off again, he had just paused and glanced over his shoulder at Leliana.

“So, trap?” he said.

She laughed. “Almost definitely.”

Drust rolled his eyes. “Weapons at the ready,” he said, pulling his blades out of their shoulder holsters and starting forward. Behind him he heard Alistair and Sten do the same, and the snap of Leliana stringing her bow.

They were not disappointed. The bait didn’t even try to hide how unconcerned she was once they followed her into the gorge, and the elven man she delivered them to was remarkably unsubtle about calling out his reinforcements. By the time the tree trunk crashed down behind them and cut off their retreat, Sten and Alistair had already charged into the thick of combat and Leliana was picking people off of the cliff across from them. Drust wasted no time joining in.

It was only when he got face to face with the leader that he realized something might be different about this fight. The elf was well-trained, with better kept armour and weapons than the average bandit, and the flat look in his eyes as he went for the kill chilled Drust to the bone. This was no mere mercenary or thug—this was a true killer.

An assassin?

Contemplating it would have to wait, though: when he locked blades with the elf, two more attackers converged on him as well, and he shut out all distractions to concentrate on the poetry of his swords. The battle that followed was brutal but short, and when it was over only Drust and his companions were left standing, with dead or dying enemies all around them. The elf lay face down in front of Drust, a mere four paces away.

He could hear his companions making a circuit of the battlefield behind him, Alistair and Leliana searching the bodies while Sten methodically and dispassionately cut the throats of any that remained alive, but he ignored them. He stepped forward and crouched next to the elf, touching the back of his hand. Still warm. He was alive, then. Drust grabbed his shoulder and turned him onto his back—and stopped, staggered by what he now saw.

Fighting, his face had been dead, emotionless, focused on nothing but killing his target and moving on to the next. But now it was alluringly expressive, even in unconsciousness. The contrast reminded Drust of something, though he couldn’t for the life of him have said what, and it was so striking that he couldn’t help but stare. Pain furrowed the elf’s brow and flickered across his closed eyes, and his mouth twitched with the confusion of one about to wake from a sleep he couldn’t remember descending into. Soft blond hair spilled across his throat and stuck to the skin of his cheek—dark, but not as dark as Drust’s—and the tattoo accenting the fine bones of his face dragged at the eye long after Drust might have looked away.

Stone below, he was beautiful. How could he not have seen it before?

As he drank in the elf’s appearance, Drust became conscious of another presence next to him. He looked up—even further than usual, from his position on one knee—to meet Sten’s eyes inquiringly.

The Qunari looked back down at him, impassive. “Shall I kill him?” he said.

Sten had come to accept, if grudgingly, Drust’s blunt refusal to kill downed or surrendered enemies, but had refused just as bluntly to spare them himself unless directly asked. Drust had given up fighting him on it. Sten came from a different world, one far more absolute, and in his world he was just being practical. Drust was willing to allow that, as long as he could count on Sten to obey him when asked—but much as he cared for his Qunari warrior, he knew he would not be able to face his brand of practicality where this would-be killer was concerned.

“No,” he said, getting to his feet. “I want to talk to him first.”

Sten acquiesced without comment, moving to join Alistair and Leliana in their position at Drust’s back. Meanwhile, Drust took a seat on a convenient boulder and set to work cleaning his weapons as he waited for the elf to rouse.

He heard the change in his breathing the moment he went from unconscious to awake, even though his eyes hadn’t yet opened. Drust wiped the last smudge of red from his sword and, without looking up, said in conversational tones, “You know, an ambush typically works much better when you don’t deliberately give up the element of surprise.”

“I shall endeavour to keep that in mind for next time,” the elf mumbled, screwing his eyes shut tightly against the light of the sun. Then they snapped open abruptly and he shot upright. “What? I—oh. I rather thought I would wake up dead. Or not wake up at all, as the case may be,” he added, giving Drust a frank look. “But I see you haven’t killed me yet.”

His eyes were the clear amber of dark honey. _Oh, ancestors,_ Drust thought.

“That could easily be rectified,” he said instead, sheathing his sword.

“Of that I have no doubt. You are most skilled,” the elf said. He settled into a more comfortable seat, showing no intention of getting up. “If you haven’t killed me, however, you must have kept me alive for some purpose, yes?”

Drust’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Failed ambush aside, you’re better than the usual class of criminal that tries to accost us on the road. You understand why I might have questions.”

“Ah, so I am to be interrogated, then,” the elf said, sounding altogether more amused by the prospect than anyone really ought to. “Let me save you a little time and get right to the point,” he continued. “My name is Zevran—Zev to my friends. I am a member of the Antivan Crows, brought here for the sole purpose of slaying any surviving Grey Wardens. Which I have failed at, sadly.”

Drust felt Alistair bristle, and he put a hand up to his arm to steady him. “What are the Antivan Crows?” he said.

“I can tell you that,” interrupted Leliana. “They are an order of assassins out of Antiva. Very powerful, and renowned for always getting the job done… so to speak,” she said, looking slightly apologetic. “Someone went to great expense to hire this man.”

“Quite right,” Zevran said happily. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard much of the Crows out here. Where I come from, we’re rather infamous.”

Drust exchanged a look with Alistair, and the younger Warden cleared his throat. “I think I know the answer to this already, but, indulge me,” he said. “Who hired you to kill us?”

“A rather taciturn fellow in the capital,” Zevran said, still looking supremely unconcerned from his position on the ground. “Loghain, I think his name was?”

“Great. Fantastic,” Alistair said. “Exactly what I like to hear.”

“It’s hardly a surprise,” Sten said.

Drust dragged a hand across his face. “No, but it does complicate things a bit,” he said. He turned back to Zevran, and the elf met his eyes with his best impression of open helpfulness. Despite himself, Drust felt his heart catch in his throat; somehow he managed to speak clearly around it. “Are you loyal to Loghain?” he said.

“I have no idea what his issues are with you,” Zevran said, raising his hands placatingly. “The usual, I’d imagine. You threaten his power, yes?” Drust grunted a vague confirmation, and Zevran continued, “Beyond that, no, I’m not loyal to him. I was contracted to perform a service.”

“A service you have failed at,” put in Alistair.

Both Drust and Zevran ignored him. “When were you to see him next?” Drust said.

“I wasn’t,” Zevran replied. “If I had succeeded, I would have returned home and the Crows would have informed your Loghain of the results—if he didn’t already know. If I had failed, I would be dead.” He shrugged. “Or I should be, at least as far as the Crows are concerned. No need to see Loghain then.”

He said it matter-of-factly, like it was the most straightforward thing in the world, but Drust nearly flinched. How many times had Beraht sent him off with a job to do and instructions not to bother coming back if he fucked it up? How many times had he gone crawling back anyway, even knowing that his employer would happily have cut him down without a second thought, because his family wouldn’t survive without the income he brought in? How many times had he fallen asleep heartsick with the knowledge that even his simplest fantasies would never come true? There were still times when he half believed he had died in Beraht’s dungeons—how else could he explain the gift that his life was now, even with the Blight looming over everything?

Zevran was watching him curiously, and Drust pulled himself together. “How much were you paid?” he said. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the softness from his voice.

“I wasn’t paid anything. The Crows, however, were paid quite handsomely, or so I understand,” Zevran said. He frowned. “Which does make me about as poor as a chantry mouse, come to think of it,” he said. “Being an Antivan Crow isn’t for the ambitious, to be perfectly honest,” he added as an afterthought.

 _Nor the Carta,_ Drust thought, but he said, “Then why join up?”

“Well, aside from a distinct lack of ambition,” Zevran quipped, “I suppose it’s because I wasn’t given much of a choice. But the Crows aren’t so bad. They keep one well supplied: wine, women—men,” he added, “whatever you happen to fancy. Though the whole severance package is garbage, let me tell you. If you were considering joining, I’d really think twice about it.”

“I will take that under advisement,” Drust said. He was struggling not to show how much his heart had leapt at the suggestion that Zevran was interested in men. He focused his thoughts, and something occurred to him. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Zevran laughed. “Why not? I wasn’t paid for silence. Not that I offered it for sale, precisely.”

“Aren’t you at least loyal to your employers?”

Alistair and Sten snorted near-simultaneously, and even Leliana sounded like she was covering up a chuckle. But rather than laugh him off—as Drust had half expected him to—Zevran merely looked pensive.

“Loyalty is an interesting concept,” he said. “If you wish—and you’re done interrogating me—we can discuss it further.”

“I’m listening,” said Drust’s traitor mouth, before he could even finish processing what the elf had said. Behind him, Alistair made a muffled noise of disbelief, but Zevran was already speaking.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I failed to kill you, so my life is forfeit. That’s how it works: if you don’t kill me, the Crows will. Thing is, I like living. And you obviously are the sort to give the Crows pause.” He took a breath, clearly aware of the audacity of what he was about to suggest. “So let me serve you, instead.”

Drust’s ears buzzed. He heard Alistair exclaim incredulously, heard Sten make a dubious grunt, but they sounded far away. In front of him, Zevran winced and raised his hands in mock surrender. His whole world narrowed to the elf’s face.

“And what’s to stop you from finishing the job later?” he heard himself ask.

He expected Zevran to say something flippant, but the elf surprised him again. “Like I said, I was never given much of a choice regarding joining the Crows,” he said. “They bought me on the slave market when I was a child. I was a bargain, too, or so I’m led to believe.” He tried to shrug it off, but Drust could see the discomfort in his eyes. “I think I’ve paid my worth back to them tenfold.”

In that moment Drust realized just what the elf’s unconscious face had reminded him of. The deliberate, emotionless concentration that washed away the instant he was left unguarded—that was how you survived in Dust Town, too. When you worked for the Carta you learned how to shut off your conscience, how to distance yourself from the things you did, how to close your soul away until only your orders remained. The alternative was no alternative at all. If you wanted to get by, you did what you had to, and stole what moments you could to forget what you’d been forced to become.

He had seen Leske go from joking and boisterous to stone-faced and mercenary in the time it took to open a door. He had watched the vivacity drain out of Rica’s face when Beraht walked into the room, and blossom again as soon as he left. He had learned to shut away his emotions and just get the job done, whatever it took. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

He had been so unsettled when he looked into Zevran’s eyes on the battlefield. Now he wondered what his victims had seen in him when he’d been on assignment for Beraht.

He shuddered.

Zevran was watching him again with the same curious expression he’d had when he so casually announced that the Crows would kill him for failing. “I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t just leave,” he said cautiously.

Drust shook his head instantly. “No,” he said. “No, I understand that very well.”

The elf nodded and looked away. “The only way out is to sign up with someone they can’t touch,” he said. “Even if I did kill you now, they might kill me just on principle for failing the first time. Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with you.”

Unbidden, Drust thought of Duncan, and he huffed a brief laugh even as the pain constricted his chest. So he was to play that role now, to Zevran as well as to Alistair. Well, he could accept that. Duncan had been a good man.

He looked at Zevran, studying him closely. If the elf had kept his killer’s blankness even outside of battle, it would have been different—but his face was open to him now, his fear and helplessness and a reckless, desperate hope shining beautifully through. It lit him up from within, and Drust swallowed. “Won’t they come after you?”

“Possibly,” the elf said, his face breaking out into a giddy smile. “I happen to know their wily ways, however. I can protect myself, as well as you. Not that you seem to need much help,” he added. “And if not… well, it’s not as if I had many alternatives to start with, is it?”

“True enough,” Drust said. He stood up, offering Zevran his arm. “I accept your offer.”

Alistair, who had been watching this exchange with an increasingly skeptical look on his face, let out a strangled squawk of dismay as Drust tugged the elf to his feet. “What? You’re taking the assassin with us now?” he demanded. “Does that really seem like a good idea?”

Drust let his hand linger just a moment too long on Zevran’s fingers. _Yes,_ he thought, and _he’s just like I was,_ and _you wouldn’t believe how warm I feel when he looks at me—_ and, wound through it all, _how could I possibly explain this?_ But instead he just nodded and said, “Don’t worry about it. We could use him.”

“We could apparently use a swift kick in the head, too, but you don’t see me going around asking for one,” Alistair muttered rebelliously, but despite that he subsided, falling in with Sten and Leliana as they prepared to leave.

Zevran smiled and clasped Drust’s arm. “I hereby pledge my oath of loyalty to you, until such time as you choose to release me from it.” He met his eyes, honey-brown to black. “I am your man, without reservation… this I swear.”

 _Oh, ancestors, don’t say things like that,_ Drust thought.

“Welcome aboard,” he said.


End file.
